# data[].attributes.body
Reflect: What do deontology and consequentialism have in common in terms of how you treat yourself, those you love, and strangers?
Deontology evaluates the morality of an event or action based on whether the act itself aligns with unverbalizable principles that are applicable to everyone in society no matter who you are. Consequentialism cares about the consequences of the act or event and a "good act" is one that brings the greatest amount of good/happiness to the most amount of people, where the needs of everyone are considered equally. Something that deontology and consequentialism have in common in terms of how you treat yourself and others is that both apply equally to everyone in society.

Reflect on the sheep story: When you found out that your father took the sheep on the sly, what would you do? Report him to the authorities, or cover for him? Why?
If I found out my father stole a sheep I would probably cover for him instead of reporting him to the authorities. Although this may not be the ethical thing to do if you regard everyone as equal I would still do it because this way of ethics disregards loyalty and personal attachment and I am more loyal to my family than some random stranger.

Reflect: How is Confucian ethics different from consequentialism and deontology?
Confucian ethics is different from the others in a few ways. First, how justice is viewed, in the sheep example, the other ethical ideologies  would view covering for your father as immoral but when it comes to the majority of people they would in fact cover for their father. In Confucian ethics it accounts for the fact that you care about your family and the moral development of your father so if you try to investigate further and ask why he did what he did then in order to help your father convince him to do the right thing (ie return the sheep) then you are acting morally. Second Confucian ethics considers context where the other ideologies do not. The others are much more rigid and black and white where Confucian ethics accounts for a lot more real world scenarios because it considers the context of a situation, social obligations, and loyalties. Third, Confucian ethics acknowledges specific relationships where the others do not.

# data[].attributes.body
Reflect on the following questions:

What other problems/issues might be more “adaptive” than “technical”?

What skills are necessary to address adaptive challenges?

What skills-more generally-do you think are necessary to be a good engineer/scientist?

Reflection questions:

In the “last man” scenario, would you nuke it or no? Why?

Most people say don’t nuke it. What could be their reasons?

Some people say it’s okay to nuke it. What could be their reasons?

Reflection questions:

Where do you fit on this scale?

Do you think there are places where humans should never live? (They visit but do not remain)

Look up the charter for the US National Park system. What Value(s) does it demonstrate?

Reflection questions:

Where do you think “humans fit”? Why?

Even if you do not consider yourself religious, do you think the Judeo-Christian view is correct?

If we are just “one species among many,” does that mean we should change our relationship with the environment?

Reflection questions:

Do you plan on having children?

Do we have obligations other people’s children?

Do people have a right to experience nature?

Are there limits to these obligations and rights?

Reflection questions:

What are the most dangerous technologies? Why?

Would these technologies also impact non-human nature?

Look up some of the different versions of the precautionary principle and discuss the differences.

Reflection questions:

What sorts of issues can a cost-benefit analysis be used to address?

What other issues of “fairness” seem embedded in environmental questions

How are ideas about anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric value in play here?

Reflection questions:

Revisit your answers about obligations to future generations. In light of population trends, does your thinking about having children change? Why?

# data[].attributes.headline
Week [4]: Introduction to Moral Philosophy

# data[].attributes.subject
Week [4]: Introduction to Moral Philosophy

# data[].attributes.body
Activity: On your Padlet board, please a) define the concept in one sentence, and b) list strengths and weakness of the concept.

1. Moral Relativism

a. "The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal, but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons" (Stanford.edu)
b. The strength of this argument is that it takes into account the truth behind morals is relative to society which makes a lot of sense for a lot of different social issues. One weakness to the concept could be that it doesn't make any claims and makes assumptions "that disagreeing parties have a common moral framework, but not in circumstances in which there are different moral frameworks" (Stanford.edu).
2. Utilitarianism

a. Whether actions are moral or not depends on the outcome or result from those actions.
b. This concept is strong in judging past events in hindsight however, when trying to judge the morality of a future decision or action since no one can see the future and know exactly what will happen the concept falls short, ie it could seem moral at the time using solely this ideology but there could be unforeseen consequences that would have altered whether or not the action was moral if they were know beforehand.
3. Deontology

a. The idea that actions are good or bad whether they fit in a defined set a rules.
b. This is good for accounting for general scenarios that would apply to most people, ie murder is bad, but falls short for specific instances that may not have been accounted for in the rule set.
4. Virtue Ethics

a. This is a broad term for ideas that emphasize the role of one's personal virtue rather than doing one's duty or acting in order to bring about good consequences.  (iep.utm.edu)
b. This idea strength is that it doesn't look at what a person does but rather looks at how good their character is, ie if their heart was in the right place, which is good because a lot of people try to do the right thing but it doesn't always end well. This is also this concept's weakness, because it doesn't account for the results at all it doesn't account for evil acts by people who believe they are doing the right thing.
5. Liberalism
a. Generally speaking this concept is based on liberty, consent by the people to be governed, and equality before the law.
b. This concept's strength is that everyone is treated equally and will be judged on the same thing. This concept's weakness could be the fact that the people who make the laws may not be perfect moral people which leads to unjust and immoral events.

Reflect on the following questions:

1. What are some examples that Sandel provides of things that money CAN buy?
Prison cell upgrades, naming rights, military contractors.

2. What are some examples of things that money CAN’T buy?
Friendship, apologies, wedding toasts (value dimishishes if bought),

3. What is the difference between “market economies” and “market societies”?
Market economies are tools to better society and market societies are societies where anything and everything is for sale.

Reflect on the following prompt:

Sandel opens a discussion about the moral acceptability of developing a free market for kidney (or other organs) transplants, and more briefly, prostitution.

1. Students and Sandel identify (at least) four objections to such a practice. List those objections.

2. Connect these objections to the concepts from Chapter Two. Which concept/s seem to be most in play here?

Reflect: Which definitions of justice resonate with your personal ethics? Why?

# data[].attributes.headline
Week [3]: Science and Engineering Ethics

# data[].attributes.subject
Week [3]: Science and Engineering Ethics

# data[].attributes.body
Reflection question: Would you change the report? Why or why not?
If after talking to my boss and they said that the report would be changed either way, although I wouldn't want to, because of the threat of never being able to proceed in my career at this firm or any other firm I don't think I would have much of a choice, I would try to convince them that it is a bad idea, and try to fight it, possibly even go anonymously to the police but because of the threat I might have to alter the report.

Reflection question: To what extent are engineers and scientists responsible for the long-term consequences of the technology that they create?
I believe that if good comes from the invention and it is initially used for good then the scientists and engineers shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of others. If 20 years later someone alters your invention and uses it for evil that is their responsibility not the people who initially invented it and saved millions of lives.

Reflection Question: Did these documents adequately convey the risks involved in the Challenger launch? Why or why not?
I believe that the first document adequately conveyed the risks since it stated the consequences of not fixing it (death). The second one is more casual, seeming to only advise that a short term solution should be put in place before the long term fix can be incorporated. Since it didn't mention any consequences of not fixing it, I do not believe that it adequately conveyed the risks.

# data[].attributes.body
Prompt 1: I believe that the spherical structure is a very interesting way to divide up how most people view their ethics or loyalties towards different groups of people. I think that there are defanatily some accuracy to it, but I do think that there may be many accecptions to it. People may hold different loyalties  to groups differently than the chart. For example, many people are very patriotic and may hold that in their inner circle instead of the outer. I think it is a good baseline but could be rearranged depending on the specific person it is being applied to.

I believe that it is ethical to switch the direction of the trolley to hit one person instead of five and to push one person off the bridge to save five because it makes the best of a bad situation. However, for legal reasons I probably wouldn't do either since both actions could be considered murder even if you save lives as a result. If I could do it without penalty I would save the five people. Personally, I would probably save the individual person I knew if they were family but not simply friends. It would be very difficult but the five lives would be the best decision. This relates to the moral spheres because my family is in the inner section of the sphere but strangers are not.

Moral Machine Reflection:  This moral machine quiz was really interesting. It presented a lot of situations that I had not considered about when implementing self driving cars. I do think they presented the issues as very black and white. You could only swerve or go strait. There was no option to stop completely or slow down to minimize casualties. Then you could base it of more physical traits ie if you could slow down enough and had to choose between hitting a bunch of fit people in the crosswalk who are more likely to survive than say a child in the car it would probably be better to hit the people who have a chance at a slower rate than simply crash and kill the child in the car.